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As mining lasers and mining upgrades are CPU-hungry, training CPU Management will make it easier to fit your ship.

Drone skills

Mining ships use drones both for defense and increased mining yield. The Drones skill is the foundation skill and should be eventually trained up to V (once you start flying Exhumers it's highly recommended, and valuable even before). To use drones defensively, train up Light Drone Operation, whilst mining drones need Mining Drone Operation. Drone Interfacing is somewhat of a long train, but even getting it to level IV makes a big difference in how effective your drones are. Advanced Drone Avionics is only needed if you plan to use ECM drones, and the drone specialization skills are needed when you start using Tech II drones. For more details on how drones work, see drones.

Fleet Support skills

These skills become highly desirable once pilots start flying Orcas or Rorquals, and want to run mining fleets (and provide mining boosts to your fleet members). For more details on how fleets and Command Bursts work, see Command Bursts.

Other skills

• Almost all the mining ships are shield tanked, so shield tanking skills are useful to make them less vulnerable to ganking.
• General fitting skills will improve the PG and CPU output of your ship allowing better fits.

If you are still short on CPU, Electronics Upgrades allow you to fit co-processor modules (which increase your ship's CPU further). Mining upgrade modules increase your mining yield, while drone augmentor rigs increase the yield of mining drones.

Implants

A number of implants can improve a miner's performance, such as increasing mining yield, increasing laser range, or decreasing the CPU penalty for mining upgrade modules. For details on these implants, see implants and skill hardwiring implants ("Industry" implants).

Mining strategies

Bookmarks

An example of mining bookmarks in an asteroid belt

When you warp to an asteroid belt, you will land in the middle of a semicircle of asteroids about 50 km in diameter. Since the (unboosted) range of mining lasers is only 10 km (15 km for strip miners), you will then need to fly closer to your target asteroid in order to mine it - and mining ships are not particularly known for their speed. You can cut down on this travel time by using bookmarks, which allow you to warp directly next to an asteroid, and start mining immediately. If you're using mining drones, it's particularly important to be close to your target asteroid, as the drones have to otherwise spend a lot of time traveling back and forth between your ship and the asteroid.

It can be helpful to create bookmarks in the asteroid belts you mine in frequently. While there are many different approaches to creating these bookmarks, the picture on the right shows a simple example: warp to an asteroid belt in a fast ship (e.g. a shuttle or a frigate), and create three bookmarks along the perimeter of the belt. Position them in such a way that most of the belt is within 15 km (the range of a strip miner) of any of the three bookmarks. Then, switch to your mining ship, and warp directly to one of the three bookmarks. You will then have a large selection of asteroids within range of your lasers, and be able to efficiently use mining drones on the closest ones. If a part of the belt is depleted, warp to a nearby celestial (e.g. a planet) and then warp back to one of the other bookmarks in the belt.

When mining in NULL sec space it is extremely important to create a couple of tactical bookmarks around the asteroid/ice belt that you should warp to first. When you are in a large mining ship the align and warp speed can mean that hostile pilots can appear in local and beat you to the belt before you get there. By warping to the tactical bookmark first you are giving yourself a chance to warp away to a safe spot or station before the hostile pilot can get a lock on you.

Survey scanner

The results of a survey scan. Note the different kinds of asteroid which make up this asteroid belt, and the different amounts of ore in each.

The survey scanner (a mid-slot module) is a very useful tool for any asteroid miner, as it shows how much ore each asteroid in the vicinity contains. This is important, as asteroid mining modules (mining lasers and strip miners) will always complete an entire cycle (60s for mining lasers, 180s for strip miners), irrespective of how much ore is actually left in the asteroid.

For instance, say you are mining an asteroid that contains 200 units of Veldspar (Veldspar has a volume of 0.1 m3 per unit, so this asteroid contains 20 m3 of Veldspar). Your Mining Laser I has a yield of (say) 100 m3/min, and a cycle time of 60 seconds. Even though there are only 20 m3 of Veldspar left in the asteroid, the module will complete its entire 60 second cycle before shutting off (with a message saying "the asteroid is depleted") - but those 60 seconds of mining only yielded 20 m3 of ore (instead 100 m3)! The problem becomes even worse when using strip miners, as they have a much higher yield and a cycle time three times as long - which can result in a lot of wasted time if you're mining asteroids that don't contain much ore.

Therefore, when mining, refresh the survey scanner window from time to time (it does not refresh automatically, you need to reactivate the survey scanner module) to check whether the asteroid(s) you are mining are close to depletion. If an asteroid is almost empty, you can "short cycle" your mining laser (i.e. turn it off manually before it completes its full cycle, by clicking on it) to mine out the last dregs of ore before moving on to another asteroid. Note that each time you activate your mining laser it takes energy from your ship's capacitor; activate it too often and you might empty your capacitor and have to wait a moment for it to recharge.

You can target asteroids directly from the survey scanner window (much like the asteroids in the overview); this can be a useful shortcut to help you mine the particular asteroid you're interested in. A little marker shows you which asteroids you are targeting (note that, just like the rest of the information, this is only refreshed when you refresh the survey scanner window).

Appraising an Asteroid Belt

Survey scanners can be used to provide the approximate value of an asteroid belt with the help of 3rd party appraisal tools. This activity is relatively easy when in a fleet that provides range bonuses to Survey Scanner. Without range boosts an estimate can be done by scanning one area of the belt at a time and removing duplicate asteroid entries before submitting.

Steps to get an estimate

1. Move into a position where the Survey Scanner range-indicator overlaps all the asteroids to be appraised
2. Perform Survey Scan by clicking on the module's icon or appropriate hotkey
3. Expand any category of ore in the Survey Scanner Results window that is collapsed (ores in collapsed categories do not get copied)
4. Copy the results from the Survey Scanner Results window:
   1. Click on any item in the window to select it
   2. Press

      CTRL

      +

      A

      to select all items
   3. Press

      CTRL

      +

      C

      to copy
5. Submit the values into a 3rd party appraisal tool like Janice

Buy values in Jita or one of the other trade hubs would be the closest estimate to actual returns from an immediate sale of the ore.

Avoiding threats

Nowhere in EVE is safe as soon as you undock your ship. You consent to PvP no matter where you go as soon as you undock.

Highsec

In highsec, the main threat will be suicide gankers. Suicide gankers typically act in groups, trying to find vulnerable and/or valuable mining ships and attempting to destroy them before Concord shows up. Then a neutral pilot will come in and scoop the remains of your wreck. You're less likely to have your pod destroyed, as doing so hits the offending pilot with a large security standing penalty, but it can still happen, so warping out immediately is recommended.

Popular ganking ships include:

• Catalyst: Most popular suicide ganking ship. Relatively inexpensive and good DPS.
• Coercer: Often used to take down ships with sturdy shields due to decent amount of EM damage which shields are usually weaker to.
• Talos: Usually used against big and/or tanky targets due to its high DPS against larger ships. Relatively expensive compared to other options.

To avoid suicide ganking:

• Equip your mining ships with defensive modules. The more EHP your ship has, the more ships it takes for a group of suicide gankers to take down your ship. It also makes it less financially motivational for them to attack you.
• Don't equip expensive faction or officer modules on your ship. This makes you a juicy target by increasing the financial incentive to suicide gank your ship. T2 modules are more than appropriate for most needs.
• Mine further away from trade hubs, as this makes it less likely for a suicide ganker or a scout to spot your ship in the first place.
• Don't mine while away from the keyboard. Dock if you must leave the keyboard unattended.
• Set negative standings for known suicide ganker pilots/corporations/alliances. If you see someone or a group appear in local with negative standings, dock up as soon as possible.

Other threats:

• If you're enrolled in faction warfare, then the opposing faction can freely attack you with no consequences, even in highsec as long as you are enrolled.
• If your corporation is at war with another corporation, the hostile corporation can freely attack you with no consequences for the duration of the war. This is more rare nowadays since corporations need a structure to be war eligible and the practice of holding corporations for structures pretty much voids this risk.
• ♢ pirates can appear in asteroid belts if there is a pirate stronghold present in the system. These rats can call other ♢ combat rats as reinforcements that can disrupt/scram your warp drive. You can check the presence of a pirate stronghold using your directional scanner.
• ♢ NPC miners can appear in asteroid belts. If you have low enough standings to the NPC corporation, they'll be hostile to you and call combat ♢ NPCs as reinforcements that can disrupt/scram your warp drive. You can warp out safely as soon as you spot them, but delaying will likely result in you losing your ship.
• Normal NPC pirates aren't much of a threat, but with enough time they can potentially destroy your ship (depending on fittings) and assist pilots in destroying your ship. Drones can take care of them easily.
• Triglavians can be a problem if you have no/low standings with them. EDENCOM similarly can be an issue if your standings are low enough.

Lowsec

In lowsec, pretty much anyone can attack you for a relatively small standing penalty (Concord won't intervene). Gate and station guns will shoot at pilots that attack you unprovoked, but they can be tanked and thus not be a good deterrent. Gate camps are fairly common. Smartbombers can be an issue if you use smaller ships. You'll often see people deploy covert cynos to drop a group of enemy pilots on you.

Avoiding ganks:

• Definitely use the directional scanner to gather intel on locals and spot threats.
• Learn the locals. Find out who attacks other people unprovoked and ships they typically use. Find out who snitches your position too if it happens.
• Equip a cloaking device and try to mine on the opposite side of the asteroids, with enough distance so you can immediately cloak in case someone appears in the system.
• Stay away from systems near highsec, as these have a lot of traffic and you can easily be scouted.
• Avoid popular paths through lowsec, for the same reasons as above. Best to pick dead-end systems off the main travelled paths.
• Mine while nobody is present in the system, or only if you're sure the locals are of no threat to you. If someone shows up, cloak or dock.
• Don't leave wrecks hanging around as their presence can betray your purpose in the system. If people see wrecks in an asteroid belt or ore anomaly, they can think you're there mining and persist in trying to find you. Either salvage or destroy them.
• Try to be wary of where people are and were in the system. People can log out in a belt and login later to catch you unaware.

Avoiding gate camps:

• Use third-party utilities to find gate camps. Note that these third party tools won't have knowledge of gate camps if you're the first person to encounter one.
• Alternatively you can check ship/pod kill statistics for systems in your route.
• If you have an alt, you can make them jump ahead of you to spot gate camps.

Other threats:

• Normal NPC pirates start fielding destroyers up the battleships the lower the security of the system descends.
• Mordu Commanders can rarely spawn in the asteroid belts and can warp disrupt.
• Clone Soldiers can rarely spawn in the asteroid belts.
• Triglavians can be a problem if you have no/low standings with them. EDENCOM similarly can be an issue if your standings are low enough.

Sovnull

Mining in sovnull is usually done if you've the backing of the sovereignty holder or its allies. Hostiles will usually be neutral pilots or enemies of your sovereignty holder. Warp disrupting bubbles can be deployed.

Sovnull systems are lawless, so there is no consequence for attacking another pilot.

NPC null

Warp disrupting bubbles can be deployed.

NPC null systems are lawless, so there is no consequence for attacking another pilot.

Other threats:

• Normal NPC pirates can show up in battleships or more lethal ships.

Wormholes

In wormholes, other pilots aren't shown in local unless they have recently sent a message. The only way to spot other players is to use the directional scanner, or if they appear in your grid. Warp disrupting bubbles can be deployed.

Wormholes are lawless, so there is no consequence for attacking another pilot.

Other threats:

• Sleepers typically spawn once per day in each ore anomaly after 20 minutes or so of the first pilot entering the site for that day. In higher classes of wormholes, sleepers can warp disrupt/scram. Once the sleepers have been destroyed, they do not respawn until the next day (after the maintenance).

Pochven

In the Pochven regions, other pilots aren't shown in local unless they have recently sent a message. The only way to spot other players is to use the directional scanner, or if they appear in your grid.

Other threats:

• Triglavians can be a problem if you have no/low standings with them. EDENCOM similarly can be an issue if your standings are low enough.

Solo mining

The Hulk: sucking asteroid belts dry since 2003

Mining hold mining

The most basic way to mine is to fill the mining hold of a ship full of ore and then return to a station to drop it off. Its advantages are that it requires only one character, can be done at very low skill levels and is completely theft-proof. Its disadvantage is that the time you spend traveling to and from a station is wasted (i.e. not spent mining) - however, most mining ships (with the notable exception of the Covetor and the Hulk) have large enough mining holds that they do not need to return frequently to a station to unload.

As an example: An average-skilled miner flying a Venture can mine about 250 m3/min of ore, which is enough to fill the Venture's mining hold (5000 m3) in about 20 minutes. Given that the Venture aligns and warps like a frigate, round trips to a station will take only a minute or two, so very little time is lost. A highly-skilled miner flying a Hulk, on the other hand, can mine about 1600 m3/min of ore, which will fill the Hulk's mining hold (11,500 m3) in about 7 minutes, requiring frequent return trips to a station (made longer by the slow align time and warp speed of the Hulk).

(Note: Prior to the Retribution expansion, cargohold mining was very unprofitable, as the cargo holds of non-industrial ships were so small that they filled up too rapidly. However, with the introduction of dedicated mining holds on all mining ships, this is no longer the case.)

Jetcan and GSC mining

Players can jettison items from their holds into space, which results in a cargo container (more commonly called a "jetcan" or just a "can") forming within 2,500 m of the ship. This jettisoned container has a volume capacity of 55,000 m3. Miners can take advantage of this capacity by transferring the ore in their mining hold into the jetcan. Typically a player will fill a jetcan with ore, and then (once the jetcan is full) swap to a ship with a larger mining/cargo hold (most often an hauler) and haul the ore to a nearby station.

If you're flying a mining ship with a mining hold that's considerably smaller than a jetcan (such as a Venture (5,000 m3 mining hold) or a Covetor (9,000 m3 mining hold)), this method can increase your efficiency, as you can spend more time mining and less time hauling. As all other mining ships have mining holds which are as large or larger than a jetcan (in addition to the time lost in changing ships and the risk of getting your ore stolen), using jetcans is probably not worth your time. They do, however, come in very handy if you're mining with two accounts or in a fleet (see below).

Note that jetcans only have a lifespan of 2 hours and they are not secure, meaning anyone can open and remove items from a jetcan. This is a common form of theft and griefing in the game, where a player will "flip" a jetcan either to steal the ore or to induce a fight without CONCORD intervention. While it's possible to combat this by using secure containers (which can be programmed with a password), the largest of these (the giant secure container, often called a GSC) can only hold 3,900 m3 of ore, which is less than the mining hold on even the smallest mining ship (although using them was a commonly-used practice in the past when mining ships had much smaller cargo holds).

A better alternative to GSCs are mobile tractor units. They have nearly as much capacity as a jetcan, are unable to be accessed by random people, and have a decay of 2 days. They also suck in and store any ore a miner might jetcan into a safer place. A mining barge can store 3 MTUs and deploy them for a temporary total of 81,000m3 of extra space. This allows for a large amount of time to be saved from station mining, as a miner instead of having to dock up can just jetcan the ore to be stored for later.

Dual account mining

If you have two EVE accounts, you can multibox them (i.e. play them on one computer simultaneously). One of these can mine while the other one flies a hauler to drop the mined ore at a nearby station. The miner transfers the mined ore into a jetcan or a GSC (see above) which is then picked up by the hauler. This way, the miner can mine non-stop, obtaining more ore. Eventually, the hauler character could train towards an Orca (to provide mining boosts to the miner, further increasing yield), while the miner character is free to train and fly ships like the Hulk, which have very high mining yield but small mining holds.

See Creating an Alt Hauler and Creating an Alt Miner for tips on creating these alternate characters.

Cooperative mining

Main article: Mining Fleets

The Orca: the easiest way to make yourself loved by miners.

A standard mining fleet in high security space generally includes a mix of mining barges, exhumers, and haulers. The miners will work on a single belt constantly and transfer the ore they mine into a jetcan. The haulers will ferry the resources from space to a station. This makes for increased proficiency as the mining lasers never need to stop unless you need to switch belts. Fleet boosters are usually present here as well, and an Orca may be used instead of a jetcan. Mining fleets in low-sec will also include combat ships to protect the fleet against rats and hostile players.

Splitting the ISK

Since all the ore is combined into a single pot (and often refined and sold later), you need to agree on a method of splitting the proceeds from the mining fleet between the participants. Since a fleet often includes not only miners with different skill levels flying different ships, but also fleet boosters, haulers, combat ships etc, the simplest way to split the ISK proceeds is to allocate them based on time spent in the fleet; however, this might discourage larger ships from joining the fleet. Various spreadsheets or web applications such as eveminingfleet.ovh can accommodate several different methods of weighing the contributions of fleet members. Whichever way you choose, make sure that the method of splitting the ISK is agreed upon by the fleet before the mining op starts.

Mining fleets in the Uni

Periodically, the Uni will undertake a large-scale, long-duration mining operation. These expeditions are planned and announced several weeks in advance to allow for adjustment of training schedules, acquisition of desired ships and fittings, and research/scouting of the target system and surrounding space. Because of the travel involved and the length of planned stay, expedition locations generally provide opportunities for mission/complex running as well.

The Expedition Boss for a particular expedition will publish the rules for that expedition, including record keeping requirements for any Common Can portions, rules for interaction with locals and what happens to the ore mined.

Such fleets are often run to donate minerals to the University, with the added bonus of attempting to break the record for the previous donation fleet.

Mining fleets are generally more relaxed than combat fleets, co-operative mission running or complex clearing. Chat and/or Mumble deal with a wider variety of topics and separating the required tasks to specialists provides everyone time to participate in the conversations. Not only does this atmosphere provide a social element of connection with the other members, but it also lets the "teaching" move beyond mining to cover a myriad of subjects.

See also

• Ice harvesting and gas cloud harvesting: The other two kinds of mining
• Refining: What to do with all the ore you just mined
• Orca Guide
• Mining aligned: a technique that sets you up to make a quick getaway if you need to